The world’s first trial of MDMA (ecstacy) to treat alcohol addiction is set to begin in Bristol.

Our speaker, Dr Ben Sessa, a clinical psychiatrist on the trial and senior research fellow at Imperial College London has said: “We know that MDMA works really well in helping people who have suffered trauma and it helps to build empathy. Many of my patients who are alcoholics have suffered some sort of trauma in their past and this plays a role in their addiction.”

Ben will bring us up to date with the latest research on the use of psychadelics in therapy.

Ben trained at UCL, London, graduating in medicine in 1997. He works clinically and academically in Bristol and at Imperial College London University, with an interest in the developmental trajectory from child maltreatment to adult mental health disorders. In the last ten years Ben has been a study doctor and a test subject administering and receiving legal doses of pure LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, DMT and Ketamine.